Sprint in name but not in speed

Sprint, the nation's fourth-largest cellular carrier, has announced that it will begin throttling connection speeds of unlimited data customers chewing through more than 23GB of data in a monthly billing period. As detailed by Sprint's chief technology officer Dr. John Saw, the new policy is an attempt to address an ever-present need for increased mobile bandwidth. The 23GB cap will protect the vast majority of subscribers against a "small minority" of unlimited data customers who "unreasonably" eat up network resources. Saw notes unlimited customers will, as their plans state, be able to use an unlimited amount of data per month, but might see connection speeds drop when they hit the 23GB mark. As he explains, the quality of service technique operates in real time, meaning throttling is applied based on current network conditions. Unlimited data users will be prioritized below other subscribers only in times and locations where the network is strained, Saw says. Prioritization windows are calculated every 20 milliseconds, and throttled users will see services restored to normal operating speeds once traffic conditions at a particular cell site clear. But they've got to remember that carrier throttling is a somewhat controversial practice, and one that recently came under fire from federal regulators. Last year, Verizon drew the ire of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Thomas Wheeler for a "network optimization" initiative designed to limit 4G LTE speeds for unlimited customers. The restrictions weren't implemented, and Sprint better not put theirs through otherwise the FCC could be all over them.